Rocky Marciano: La légende

"Rocky Marciano" (1999): Can the true life story of a boxer be full of lessons for us all? Yes. Forget that shmucky stuff like "Rocky", "Rocky II", "III", "IV" Sixteen, Twenty seven, Son of Rocky... ad nauseum. This is the modest, gritty, not-pretty, non-romanticized story of an underdog from Day One, who, by sheer determination and little else, rose to the top, and remains the ONLY undefeated Heavy Weight box in history. To do this, you must be something special, even if you ARE modest, have doubts, get pounded around, conned, taken for granted, and trade off family time to earn a living. It's OUR story, if you look beyond the ring. Jon Favreau stars, along with Penelope Miller, Judd Hirsch, a sleazy character by Tony Lo Bianco, and a wonderful character by George C. Scott. This is not the only boxing movie by far, but it is one of the Top Five. ("Raging Bull", "On the Waterfront", "Ali", and "The Boxer" would have to be the others.)

Don't let the 'made for TV' or boxing theme put you off this film. Rent it. Even my wife stayed awake late at night and thoroughly liked this film, much to my surprise. It is well-acted and scripted, and does not really glorify boxing.

First of all an interesting footnote, Tony Lo Bianco played Marciano in a 1979 tv film and also appears in this one as slimy mobster Frankie Carbo (he plays a really detestable character). This is a great film about the real life Rocky. Someone once fed some facts about boxing champions into a computer and the computer said Rocky was the greatest champ of all time. This can be debated of course, but this film shows him as not only a great boxer but as a humble, decent human being who literally started out with nothing. It made me angry watching this film as to how poor Italian immigrants like the Marcianos were treated as second class people and labeled as "dagos". In one of his last performances, George C. Scott is wonderful as Marciano's father. There is one mistake in this film, however. It shows Marciano visiting his friend Joe Louis in a Denver mental hospital. In fact, Joe Louis wasn't committed to this hospital until 1970 a year after Marciano was killed in a tragic plane crash.

Charles Winkler gets a very good performance out of Jon Favreau as Rocky Marciano and creates an interesting overall effect. Excitement is built as the movie progresses.

Yet, the story could have been stronger. Some of the characters are written in a two dimensional manner. Penelope Ann Miller seems to be doing her best with the character of Barbara Cousins, as does Judd Hirsch as Al Weill and Tony Lo Bianco with the cartoonish Frankie Carbo. Duane Davis' charm is only allowed to occasionally peek through as Joe Louis.

Rino Romano and George C. Scott shine in smaller roles. Rino Romano quietly steals scenes as Rocky's best friend Allie Colombo and George C. Scott takes the film to a higher level in every time he's in the frame.

Just saw this film for the first time and it was great. The cast was well put together and it had a great story. The only failing of this film is that the subject had so many aspects of his life to cover that only a few of them were touched upon. Overall...An excellent biographical film.